


we have only one shot to live another day (we gotta go, we gotta get the job done, we gotta start a new nation)

by youareiron_andyouarestrong



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Genre: F/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Wrecking the Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9346796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: They are on Yavin IV when the news hits.“A second Death Star?” echoes Bodhi numbly as Cassian closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall, Chirrut bows his head and Baze growls low in his throat. “How did they even get the plans for a second one?”...“There is a ninety-five percent likelihood Jyn will respond to the news with extreme violence,” says Kay-Tu.





	

_and as our fallen foes retreat, I hear the drinking song they’re singing_

_the world turned upside down..._

They are on Yavin IV when the news hits.

“A second Death Star?” echoes Bodhi numbly as Cassian closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall, Chirrut bows his head and Baze growls low in his throat. “How did they even get the _plans_ for a second one?”

“Most of it is derived from what remains of Galen Erso’s work,” says Mon Mothma quietly, her voice pure politician, but Cassian can sense the strain underneath. “It is not yet complete and they seem to be following the same basic structure of the original.”

 _The original,_ Cassian thinks, sick rising in him, rage and terror and frustration all twisted together like wires. That he should even _live_ to _see_ it, what was the _point_ of it all--

“What does Princess Leia say?” he asks curtly and Mon Mothma’s eyes flick to him.

“Princess Leia is...indisposed,” she says finally, which is apparently code for _haring off to find her smuggler encased in carbonite_ , and muffled groans run throughout the room. “We are not yet sure of her return. In the meantime, we must prepare ourselves for the inevitable conflict. Captain Andor, you and your crew will receive your orders soon.”

Dismissed, Cassian nods curtly  and the rest of them depart. “We are so kriffed,” says Bodhi despondently, shutting his eyes. “I mean, _come on._ Did we go through all that--just for them to build _another_ one?”

Baze grunts. “Then they’ll make the same mistakes and we’ll beat them the same way.”

“As the Force wills,” agrees Chirrut firmly, but even his impenetrable calm seems rattled.

Cassian is still thinking about the reports he is going to have to send, the messages he must encode, the reports his network will send him--

He almost walks into Kay-Tu, who looms as he ever does in front of them. “We have heard the news,” he informs Cassian precisely. “There was only a thirty-eight percent chance of them attempting to rebuild it.”

“You didn’t feel the need to mention it?” asks Cassian somewhat sourly, even though he knows how useless it is to blame Kay-Tu.  The droid almost seems to cock its head.

“It was purely a hypothetical,” he says and then after a pause, asks, “Have you informed Jyn yet?”

 _Jyn._ Oh, stars in their courses--

“There is a ninety-five percent likelihood she will respond to the news with extreme violence,” says Kay-Tu and Cassian has to shut his eyes at the prospect. The other five percent chance is that she will withdraw into herself, sinking into a well so deep he won’t be able to pull her out of it.  

“ _Go,”_ says Bodhi urgently. He, Chirrut, Baze and Cassian all know what this news will do to Jyn. “Go find her.”

He takes off through the base. If he’s _lucky_ she’ll be there wrecking their shared living quarters, and not trying to get herself killed off-planet.

* * *

He’s lucky.

She’s in the middle of what remains of their room, bed overturned, table sent sprawling, covers and pillows scattered across the floor, what little personal effects she had smashed to pieces--not his, though. She hadn’t gotten to his yet.

Her chest is heaving, her eyes blazing, her face deadly pale and all he can think of is watching her on Jedha, going through ranks of stormtroopers like they were made of wet rags. She turns when he enters the room, slowly and carefully, deliberately making noise. Her hands clench and unclench, her teeth grind together. He hasn’t heard her do that in ages.

“You know?” she asks flatly and he doesn’t hesitate.

“We just got the news,” he says and doesn’t ask how she heard. She still has contacts he does not.

Her teeth are coming together audibly now, a low sound of fury rising in her throat. “ _How_ ?” she grates. “How did they know? What was left? What did we _miss?_ ”

“They must’ve found something of your father’s work,” Cassian starts and Jyn _laughs,_ the sound harsh and furious.

“Then it was all for nothing,” she spits out. “All of it, everything we did. All the lives lost, the bloodshed, Saw, Jedha, _my father--”_ she is visibly shaking with pent up rage and Cassian thinks he stretched a hand towards her she’d burn him up like the light from a dying star.

“It wasn’t for nothing,” he says quietly. “It was _never_ for nothing, Jyn, you know this. You _know_.”

She shakes her head fiercely, as if pushing away the words, and then stomps on something breakable in the wreckage. Cassian can hear it crack. “It wasn’t supposed to happen!” she shouts, broken and furious. “We _won,_ we _stopped_ it, my father’s work, Saw, Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze, _us,_ we stopped it, it _never_ should have happened, _how dare they, how dare they--”_

She kicks at a fallen over table and chair, hard enough to make the wood crack, and Cassian goes over immediately, wraps his arms around her, pulls her into his chest. She lets out a muffled shriek of fury against his shirt and pounds her fists against his heart, not really trying to hurt _him,_ just trying to get her fury out. He endures it and holds her closer, tighter.

Jyn’s blows slowly lose their momentum; she sags against him like a puppet whose strings have been cut. She shakes against him like a tree in a gale; his shirt is wet and warm from where her face is pressed against it.

If there was a bed, he’d sit them down on it; but there’s not, so he lowers them to the floor, deliberately placing himself on top of her, weighing her down with his presence, keeping her grounded.

This used to happen a lot, especially after Scarif. She’d get furious over seemingly insignificant things or freeze in place, unable to move, and Cassian would be the one to talk her down, walk her out of it. Sometimes she’d blow up, furious at something and unable sit or stand still, start hyperventilating, unable to focus or pull herself back together.  Cassian had seen it happen before and learned quickly that physical touches and reassurances kept Jyn connected to herself. Bodhi talks to her, Chirrut prays softly over her as he holds her hand, Baze will wrap her up in a huge bearhug, until her energy runs out. But Cassian is the one who talks her back to reason.

It’s been ages since she’s done this, but it never stops hurting Cassian to watch her. Now, his weight bearing down on her, she shakes against him, face pressed against his shirt. Jyn hardly ever cries--not in front of other people, at any rate. He is the only one who ever bears witness to her tears and he holds it in his heart like the trust it is.

After a while, after the tremors stop going through her frame, but her breathing is deep and harsh and ragged, heaving against him.

He bows his head over hers, pushes his faces into the crook of her neck, a place well-beloved and intimately known to him. “I’m sorry,” he tells it, not to her face, not with his own heart sick and frustration coiling in him. “I’m sorry, _corazón_ _.”_

“Not. Your. Fault,” she gets out, the fight leaking out of her, as she comes down, back to herself. “Sorry I. Trashed the room.”         

He shrugs against her, feeling weary, weary, weary, and they haven’t even begun yet. “It can be fixed.”

“I should be better,” she croaks, smaller tremors starting through her again.  “I shouldn’t--I shouldn’t _do_ this, we don’t have _time_ for it, I should be out there working with you, I’m _sorry--”_

Something in Cassian’s heart breaks, a small, sharp fissure. “Don’t you ever be _sorry,_ ” he hisses and she flinches under him. He pulls back, enough to see her face, streaked with tears, and he wants to burn something to ground for putting that look on her face.

“You’re angry,” he tells her, letting his arms rest on either side of her head, lifting some of his weight off of her. “You’ve a right to be angry. You can be as angry as you want Jyn, but _the work must get done._ Be angry, _corazón_ _,_ be as angry as you can be. That’s how we get the job done.”

A weak, wet sound escapes her, maybe a laugh. “Chirrut would say anger leads to darkness and suffering.”

“It can lead to _fire_ too,” Cassian says, “fire and light.”  

Jyn presses her face to his shoulder, takes in a deep breath, and then another, and then another. She is very still now and Cassian can feel her gathering courage and strength like a cloak around her. She pulls back, looks him in the eye, face wet, eyes bright, jaw set. He waits.

“Let me up,” she tells him softly, “let’s get the room back in order. And then get our orders.”

He carefully levers himself off her, wincing slightly. His left leg has never been the same since the fall in the Scarif archives and lying on it on that angle bothers him. She gets to her feet first, pulls him upright. “Will you actually _follow_ the orders this time?” he says dryly, knowing full well she will only if it suits her.

“If it gets the job done,” she retorts, customary bravado a thin layer of paint over her anger and fear and grief.

They straighten out the room as best they can (Cassian will see about requisitioning a new table and chairs later). He straightens out Jyn’s clothes too, pushes her hair away from her face, does it up for her as best as he can (he’s never been the best of helping her with her hair, but she needs his touches now more than she needs to appear presentable) and she fixes his shirt where her grip left it rumpled. Her hands rest on his chest, one over his heart, a gesture that has become a touchstone between them.  

* * *

They get their orders. Bodhi, Baze and Chirrut rally around them, silent support. Jyn stands  with them, her shoulders back, spine straight, her expression a dare for anyone to comment on her eyes, still rimmed with red and her face streaked with the remains of tears. If Mon Mothma notices, she makes no sign of it.

They are to leave at dawn.

Back at their room, Jyn doesn’t immediately turn to pack or gather her gear, as she usually does. She doesn’t move to help Cassian to do so either. She tilts her head back to look up at him, slight and slim and burning bright as a flame. She rises on her toes and kisses him, an unexpectedly soft touch between them, not her usual hunger or fierce devouring of him. He returns it, trying to keep it soft, gentle, but Jyn, while having developed an appreciation for gentle touches, still doesn’t have much patience for it. It becomes fierce, insistent, a heated thing like the burn of a lightsaber.

She is reckless and hungry for him and the thought alone is enough to make him back her into the newly made bed and sink them both into it. She gets her legs around his waist and flips them over, the bed beneath them creaking in protest; it’s not meant for such energetics.

She is fierce and burning eyed, looking down at him with her gaze heat and touch. “We are going to win,” she tells him precisely, clearly, as if expecting an argument. “We are going to _win.”_

“Yes,” he agrees, because looking at her, unbowed and unbroken, he can believe it, he can pledge his soul to it. “Yes, we will.”

Their lovemaking is frantic, ferocious, desperate. Jyn holds him down with her thighs and rides him relentlessly, teeth bared like a declaration of war against the Death Star, against the Empire, against whatever darkness that threatens them. He braces his hands on her hips and lets her take what she needs and when she collapses on top of him, the two of them spent and gasping, he lets her slide off of him, pulls her into his side. She breathes, again and again, one hand curled over his heart.

“We’re going to win,” she says again softly, into his skin.  

Cassian closes his eyes and remembers, only barely, a prayer his mother used to say when worried: _may it be as you have said; those who came before us, watch over us in the Force._  

He is not sure, really, how much he _believes_ in the Force, but sometimes, just sometimes, Cassian’s heard stories of pilots or agents having premonitions before a mission or assignment--flickers of what might happen. The _whispers of the Force_ , it’s called, and he hears it now, lying besides the woman he loves (he will tell her, he will tell her soon, because he will not let their farewells be his motivation for telling her; he has a soldier’s superstition against saying good-bye).

 _You shall live to see these days renewed,_ the whispers tell him. _And no more despair._

**Author's Note:**

> my never ending quest to apply Hamilton to EVERYTHING from Rogue One.


End file.
